Morgan Rice - Arena Two

I only spot one person who seems strong, and I’m surprised to see it’s a girl. About my age, my height – but with a more muscular build than me. In fact, she’s almost built like a bodybuilder. She wears tight, camouflage pants and a tattered green shirt, and for some reason she stands across the room, her back against a wall, and stares right at me with her big black eyes. It is a piercing, intense stare, and I wonder what I’ve done to get on her bad side. She looks like a formidable opponent.

“Don’t be scared of her,” the boy says, catching my look. “That’s my sister.”

I turn look at the boy, and see no resemblance.

“She’s just watching out for me.”

I turn and look down at the boy, and remember how he helped us. I’m so grateful.

“Thank you for saving us,” I say.

He smiles back and shrugs. He is cute, innocent, with his freckles across his nose.

Brooke approaches him. “Yeah, thanks,” she echoes.

He turns and looks at her, and smiles back, seeming to be transfixed by her.

She looks away, and I could swear that I see her cheeks flush.

“Want to introduce us to your sister?” I ask.

“Sure,” he says.

There’s a sweetness to this boy, a happy-go-lucky attitude, that surprises me, as if he is unfazed by all of this.

As we turn and follow him, Ben and I dragging Logan. Bree hurries up and walks alongside him.

“What’s your name?” he asks her.

Bree turns and looks at me, as if for permission, and I nod back.

“Bree,” she says. “What’s yours?”

“Charlie,” he says, holding out his hand.

Bree waits a moment, then shakes it.

“Charlie,” she says. “That’s a funny name.”

“Why?” he asks.

“I don’t know, it just is.”

“My sister is going to be mad,” he says to me, as we get closer. “I’m just warning you. She gets mad when I talk to people. Especially if I help them. She wants us to keep to ourselves.”

We get closer, and she comes into view, standing beneath a torch: she stands against a wall, arms crossed, and with her sleeveless shirt, I can see her huge muscles bulging in her shoulders and arms. She looks like a rock, like part of the wall itself. She’s a humorless person, with a warrior’s face. The opposite of her little brother. He was right: she is scowling.

“Get over here,” she snaps at Charlie.

He hurries over, and stands at her side, facing us.

“Your brother saved us,” I say to her. “Thank you.”

“He should’ve let you die,” she says.

She scowls back, meaning every word of it.

I am surprised by her response. I’ve never met such a hard person; she’s harder than Logan ever was.

“We’re not running a charity here. It’s every man for himself. And if I have to kill each one of you in the games, I will,” she says. “Don’t think that you’re getting on my good side.”

“I don’t even know what the games are,” I say.

She stares back, cold. “You will.”

“Don’t be so mean to them, Flo,” Charlie says.

“What games?” Ben asks, stepping forward.

She surveys him, looking him up and down, coldly summing up the competition. She looks like she decides he isn’t worth the bother.

“The reason we’re down here,” she says. “We’re bait. Everyone dies.”

“Except for you!” Charlie chimes in proudly. “Tell them! She’s the only who ever survived. This is her second go.”

I survey her with a new respect. Somehow, I’m not surprised.

But her scowl only deepens.

“I’m not stupid enough to think that means I’ll survive again. The new arena starts tomorrow. They’ll watch us kill each other, until they’re satisfied. Winning didn’t get me anywhere. I’m right back here, where I started. There is no prize for the winner. Just a prolonged death.”

“What about escape?” I ask.

She stares at me as if that’s the dumbest idea in the world.

“Don’t you think if it was that easy I would’ve done it already?”

We stand there, in the gloomy silence, and I ponder this news. It is bleak. She’s right: if there were a way out, I’m sure she would have found it. We are stuck.

“Or someone else would have,” Flo adds. “They bring in this riffraff by the trainloads. This rooms is always filling with them. I hate them. I hate them all. They’re so stupid. They don’t realize what’s ahead of them. Some of them try to escape. They don’t get far. It doesn’t really matter: we’re all going to do either way. In here or out there.”

I look over and see Charlie sneaking behind his sister; he reaches out and hands Bree something furtively. She reaches out and grabs it.

“Charlie don’t!” screams Flo, slapping his hand hard. But it’s too late. He is caught red-handed, as he gives Bree a small piece of chocolate.

“What’s the matter with you!?” she snaps at him.

“I just want to give her a small piece,” he says.

“These people don’t care about us,” she scolds.

Charlie looks down, in shame.

You’re wrong , I want to say. I do care about you. And especially about Charlie, who I already love like a brother . I will have a soft spot in my heart for him forever for helping us, and for giving Bree that piece of chocolate. Your heart has become too hard , I want to say to her. You might be surviving, but you’re already dead inside .

But I don’t say any of these things, because I recognize a part of myself in her. And it scares me. She is almost like the version of myself that I might have become, if I stayed along such a hard road. I remember what happened when I helped that man back on the Hudson, and a part of me gets her, and respects her – yet dislikes her at the same time.

“You can have it back,” Bree says, reaching out to hand it to Flo.

Flo looks down at her, and for a millisecond, I think I see her expression soften.

Then it hardens again.

She turns her back, grabs Charlie, and yanks him around, to walk away with her. They disappear, towards a darker side of the cavernous room, clearly signaling that her time with us is done.

I watched him walk into the blackness, already missing Charlie, already feeling as if we’ve lost a friend.

Bree turns and holds out the chocolate to us all.

“You guys share,” she says.

Ben shakes his head, and I shake mine, too, despite the pain in my stomach.

“It’s yours,” I say.

“Logan, what about you?” she asks. “You have to eat something.”

“That’s a good idea,” I echo, and Ben and I each prop him up.

He looks back at her weakly and shakes his head.

But Bree breaks off a piece of her piece, and puts it in his mouth. She shoves it into his mouth, and he chews. His eyes light up, for the first time in days.

“That’s the best chocolate I ever had, kiddo,” he says to her.

My heart breaks at the sound of his voice, to hear how weak he has become. I think of the irony: we have come all this way because of him, and he sustained his injury while saving Bree. I feel awful. And Bree does, too.

“I need to sit,” Logan whispers.

We all head to a far wall, dragging Logan with us. We find a spot against the stone where we can all sit, flickering beneath a torch, our backs to the wall. It is a good vantage point: we can survey the entire room, see what everyone’s up to, make sure no one sneaks up on us.

We settle in and wait, and a heavy silence blankets us. I can’t help but feel as if we are all waiting for our deaths.

We sit there, the four of us, our backs against the wall, looking out, watching. I don’t know how much time has passed. The activity in the cave seems to have quieted down, with most of the others sitting or lying down along the sides of the cave. Few people in here cross from one side to the other, interact with each other. Most are wary and cautious, and keep to themselves. I feel as if we’re in prison, and I trust no one. Especially after the reception we received.